Archives for August 2015

At the 2015 meeting of the SSAR several students were recognized for exceptional oral and poster presentations. The award for oral presentations, named for Henri C. Seibert, was presented to four students in four seperate categories; Systematics/Evolution: Carl Hutter (University of Kansas), Ecology: Nick Huron (University of Oklahoma), Conservation: Tyler Hoskins (Miami University), and Physiology/Morphology: David Penning (University of Louisiana at Lafayette).

There were also eight honorable mentions; Systematics/Evolution: Jesse Grismer (University of Kansas), Pascal Title (University of Michigan), Alexa Warwick (Florida State University), Ecology: Alex Rohtla (Villanova), Conservation: Daniel Quinn (Truman State University), and Physiology/Morphology: Melissa Van Kleeck (University of Hawaii at Manoa), Robin Abraham (University of Kansas). A special mention to six excellent undergraduate presentations in the Systematics/Evolution category with Matt Buehler (University of Kansas) giving a particularly impressive talk.

We also presented 12 students with a $500 travel award to allow them to attend the meeting. These were drawn at random from students who applied for the award which required presenting at the meeting and having not received the award previously, winners include Chris Thawley, Rachel Flanagan, Stu Nielsen, Zachary Martin, Megan Smith, Brian Lavin, Molly Womack, Alexandra Gonzalez, John Phillips, Andrea Roth, Jordan Meyer, and Arianne Messerman.

Six of the 12 Student Travel Award Winner. Stu Nielsen is clearly the most excited about his award.

We generally think of the National Science Foundation as a reliable (albeit highly competitive) source of federal funding for all of basic research, including herpetology. But we can’t accept that as a given. NSF’s budget and aspect of its focus and direction are determined by Congress and there are always pressures and threats to cut the budget or to change NSF’s mandate to something that is more applied, more revenue driven, or more in line with interests other than quality science. SSAR has joined 48 other biological organizations in signing onto a letter about the future of NSF drafted by the American Institute of Biological Sciences and directed to the Senate Commerce Committee. In so doing we are making it clear that we believe that the priorities of the National Science Foundation should be set by the Foundation, not by Congress, and that science and the country are well-served by an NSF that support of pure science, in all areas of research, based on the peer-review system.